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Sandy's avatar

My question about Turner is the same one I had with regard to Horton's hire: is this the best qualified person for the job.

Given the secret nature of the search it is impossible to know how Turner compared to the finalists. Our only comparable examples are the pre-Horton searches (which had multiple candidates with superintendent experience) and other cities that are currently undergoing public superintendent searches. Just do a google search for "superintendent finalists" and you can see tonnes of cities with finalist pools much stronger than Turner.

Take a look at Bloomington, for example: https://www.25newsnow.com/2021/11/12/central-illinois-school-administrator-among-finalists-district-87-superintendent/

This is what happens when the District conducts a secretive search: the candidate comes in under a cloud of concern and suspicion. This is especially the case following the Horton hire, whom anyone with a brain would reject after doing a simple google search.

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Tom Hayden's avatar

This is kind of an Evanston thing - look at how the City hires people - they do weird secretive processes too, like the hiring of the recent City Attorney who was an insider. With that said, it shouldn't be an Evanston thing. It makes absolutely no sense to me!

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Tracy's avatar

It is a school district thing. The established hiring consultants recommend confidential searches with one final candidate and have for about a decade. There are a small amount of school districts who still haven’t changed to this model and it will continue to shrink.

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Tom Hayden's avatar

I've been pitching a story to the NYT/WSJ about this subject - the rotating door of superintendents and search firms is a *VERY* dirty business and essentially a tax on the public

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